July 1
[This is from my letter to Robert Smith, July 1, 1805. It was in response to false accusations launched by my political opponents, including my fathering Sally Hemings’s children.]
I communicate it to particular friends because I wish to stand with them on the ground of truth, neither better nor worse than that makes me. You will perceive that I plead guilty to one of their charges, that when young & single I offered love to a handsome lady. I acknowledge its incorrectness; it is the only one, founded in truth among all their allegations against me. You are among those whose esteem I value too much to risk it by silence.
[When individuals mistakenly assert that I fathered children by those in bondage, they invariably invoke a scientific inquiry into lineage — what is termed a DNA study. Yet, when one more versed in the particulars inquires whether this study's findings yielded a definitive conclusion, the response is ever a subdued admission: "No, the DNA results were not conclusive." Truth, it seems, is less pliable than their hasty judgments.]
[This is from a letter to William Fleming, my old roommate from college, written on July 1, 1776. He had given me news that I almost lost the election while I was 300 miles away from Virginia, busy drawing up a particular document, a ‘Declaration Etc,’ i.e., Declaration of Independence. My friend later assured me that my peers still view me in high esteem but I had forgotten that I expressed to Dr. George Gilmore earlier of my intention to resign due to my ailing wife Martha at home.]
I wish you had depended on yourself rather than others for giving me an account of the late nomination of delegates. I have no other state of it but the number of votes for each person. The omission of Harrison and Braxton and my being next to the lag give me some alarm. It is a painful situation to be 300 miles from one’s country, and thereby open to secret assassination without a possibility of self-defence. I am willing to hope nothing of this kind has been done in my case, and yet I cannot be easy. If any doubt has arisen as to me, my country will have my political creed in the form of a ‘Declaration &c.’ which I was lately directed to draw. This will give decisive proof that my own sentiment concurred with the vote they instructed us to give. Had the post been to go a day later we might have been at liberty to communicate this whole matter.